12.20.2013

Self-Given Authority is Only Valid for Those Who Accept It

I haven't felt the desire or need to write long-form about anything in my personal life in a while, as you can see by the length of time that has passed since my last blog post here. However, I'm tired of being silent about certain things in my life...

One of those things is my religious views. Now, before I continue, if you know me or know my online persona, ask yourself this: "Has he ever done anything that would cause me to think he is a moral-less, evil person that I would not want to associate with?"

If you answered "yes" to that question, why have you allowed yourself to remain associated with me long enough to read this blog post? You should have disassociated yourself from me instantly. Chances are, though, that you answered "no" or "I don't know him well enough."

Good.

Now, it shouldn't have to feel like I am announcing some unknown secret to the world, and it shouldn't have to feel like I am risking losing friends to do so, but unfortunately the majority of the audience that this will be directly broadcast to holds strong enough view points that the latter is likely true - and people who I thought were friends will let me know that we never were by their forthcoming actions.

So, with all that in mind, here it is: I no longer subscribe to any religious affiliation.

There, it's out there. Some people have seen it coming, some people already knew it, and some people feared it to be the case. I'm not an atheist, I'm just not associating myself with any religion, any longer.

But where do we go from here?
Well, my real friends will say "so what?" and we will continue our relationship the way it was and is.
But I'm sure there will be a handful or more that think to themselves "omg, he's not a Christian, I can't be around him" (which flies in the face of everything they should have been taught about Jesus in the first place). And there will be some who think "well, ok, that was [un]expected...but it doesn't affect me, so, whatever."

At this point, I would ask the people who thought "omg, he's not a Christian, I can't be around him" to go back to the first question and ask yourself what suddenly changed between the start of this blog post and now...what did I do to you personally that suddenly made you think I am an evil, moral-less person?

Nothing, right?

If that's not the case, however unlikely, let me know why you can't be associated with me in the comments, please, either here or on Facebook. However, if you simply unfriend me, I'll know who did, and come up with my own reasons as to why.

But for anyone else who hasn't decided that I suddenly turned into an evil person, here's some background on my decision. It wan't hastily made, and it has been this way since around 2007.

========== (this will be long, but it should be read before anyone questions my decision) ==========

In the mid-90s, my mother married the man who was now my step-dad.

My step-dad "introduced" us all to what we were told was the type of household described in the bible, because for the first time in our lives we were old enough to comprehend what a husband and wife relationship was, and the dynamics of that relationship between my mom and step-dad...and what that meant for us kids.

Our life was completely oriented around his understanding and interpretation of the bible, and if there was a disagreement about what was said, we were wrong and he was right.

Obviously an environment where no one is allowed to question anything doesn't create a very positive learning or understanding environment...it simply leads to someone else making all the decisions for you, without bothering to, or being allowed to, ask "why?".

It went on like this through high school. We were allowed to go to church, school, work and back home. I attended the adult Sunday School classes because the youth group's classes were pointless and meaningless...I carried a Bible around with my books in High School (because...who knows why)...I tried to bring back the Pledge of Allegiance during the morning announcements (which in retrospect was laughable) and I made certain to only hang around the kids who shared similar views, or at least the ones with the fewest opposing views. However, everything that I did was out of the impression of what my beliefs were, according to my religious figureheads - my parents.

It was that way until I turned 18 and went to college at East Texas Baptist University. For the first time in my life, I had no one to turn to when a decision had to be made, and started making them myself - some successful, some mistakes, and some experimental. I decided what church I felt like I should attend, what friends I wanted to associate with, and started trying to figure out what I wanted in a future wife.

Many of those friends I wanted to associate with are still listed as friends on my Facebook page, and the ones I was closest to during college are the ones that I still talk with today from time to time.

I read my Bible every day either before bed, or when I woke up. I made a point to join various Bible Study groups on campus, like Journey. I met several lovely girls that I got to know and went on dates with any who would agree. I walked to Church on Sundays if I didn't have a ride, and did all my classwork for the week during the weekend before the class was scheduled. That was during the first year.

During the second year, I decided I needed to find even more friends and joined a touring Drama Group that we put together in my circle of friends and we went to the local churches and did performances. I volunteered to become a Resident Assistant to be a mentor and guide to my fellow students. I even created a campus-based social network before that was even a thing to help bring people together and have discussions on topics of common interest.

However, my parents pulled me out of the college half-way through the second year, and things started to get bad between them and I.

Over the course of 3 months, I was told I needed to become the Manager of the local Dairy Queen, but I wasn't allowed to work on Sundays. We changed churches several times during that period because my step-dad disagreed with the pastor on trivial matters. I was told I needed to get into a local technical school and move out of the house. Then I was told I couldn't move out and had to pay rent equivalent rent. We went to the car dealership and I bought a car, then they took the car from me, and made me pay blue book for my mom's old car. Then I was told I needed to sell my computer to pay for the car which I wasn't even allowed to drive. I was told to get my drivers license via the at-home course, and then was told my step-dad would not train me to drive anymore. I was told I needed to start a lawn mowing business, and had to pass flyers out around town. I was told I could not contact any of my college friends, even if they came to town to see me. I could not access the internet or even use the computer. And from 1995 until forever, we were not allowed to contact anyone in our family who was outside of our immediate family.

And finally...March 22nd, 2003, I was told "You have two choices: Join the Army, or move in with your Dad."

I had been kicked out of the family that raised me during my cognitive years, but that wouldn't let me finish college, and wouldn't let me move out, and wouldn't let me get the job I needed to move out. Kicked out of the family that had previously instilled their Christian values in me, but then jerked me around during my formative adult years, right before abandoning me.

I chose to move in with my Dad. I was finally given a choice I was allowed to make, I am glad I made the choice.

March 23, 2003 I arrived on my dad's driveway as they were pulling out to go to CiCi's Pizza for dinner, with a trash bag of clothes (and other items I smuggled into those bags of clothes), hoping they would receive me, after my step-dad had told us kids all kinds of bad things about my dad and his side of the family for YEARS.

I tried to pick up where I had left off in college. I read my bible every day, and went to church even if my dad and step mom weren't going to go. I tried to find new Christian friends to hang around. I tried to figure out what I wanted in my future wife. But also I had to decide what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

Some of those new Christian friends are listed as friends on Facebook today. They are friends from when I went to a church in Arlington that I had previously attended before my step-dad suddenly moved us to a country town after my freshman year of high school. I still talk with some of them from time to time when I have something relevant to say.

However, living with my dad was completely different from living with my step-dad. My dad wasn't there to make my decisions for me - he was there to let me make my own decisions and mistakes, and provide advice if I asked for it. Instead of having the safety net of over-protection keeping me from doing stupid stuff, I only had the understanding of the mistakes my parents made as they were growing up and going through the same stuff I would go through.

Don't get a girl pregnant until you're financially capable of supporting a family. Check.
Don't go bankrupt because you let your spending get out of control. Close-call, but check.
Don't gain weight because you get a desk job at 23. Well, I messed that one up.
Don't marry someone too soon, and have to go through all the pain a divorce causes for all the families involved. So far, so good.

Around 2005, I started getting less and less out of my church attendance, and eventually moved out, at a distance where "going through the motions" wasn't as cost effective as simply not going. Instead, I decided if I wasn't going to learn anything applicable at church, I would learn something intellectually applicable, and spent my time watching the Science Channel and the History Channel.

I was still running my "campus based social network" but at this point, it was no longer for the campus, it was global, with people from all points of view, and from a dozen different countries, and nearly every state in the US.

Most of those people who were from my social network, The-Spot.Net, are still listed as friends on Facebook, and I talk with as many of them as I can when there is something to comment on.

Those people introduced a closed-minded religious boy to the fact that the world is bigger than the Southern Baptist denomination...that there are other ways of looking at things that have logical and demonstrable explanations than simply attributing everything to an invisible man in the sky. However, not everyone on the site could grasp the concept of a multifaceted debate, and those people on that site also taught me how to listen to and talk about subjects that are touchy in the least, and often severely controversial.

It wasn't until 2008 when I realized that all the points of view I held growing up, that were instilled in me by my mom and step-dad, were really points of view that were designed to manipulate me into doing what they said without question. It was around this time that my mom found me online, and sent me an email. It was also around this time that I had read the bible through-and-through twice, once in order, and once out of sequence, and read through Proverbs at least 4 times.

In the back-and-forth emails that only lasted about 2 volleys, I questioned why she believed what she did, and the best she could come up with was "because the Bible says so."

For someone who took 5 sciences and 5 maths in only 4 years of high school, who taught himself trigonometry while the rest of the class was learning to recognize patterns, who wrote an operating system for a calculator as a Senior using math and simple logic during Pre-Calculus class because he took it as a sophomore...simply saying "because the Bible says so" is not a valid reason.

The Bible is essentially an anthology of the lineage stories oriented around the people of Israel from "Adam" to Daniel to Jesus. Once Jesus comes onto the scene, the Bible becomes a series of letters from the followers of Jesus to the various churches of the region who are trying to get started in this new religion. However, there are several books of the era that the First Council of Nicaea decided were not worthy of being included in the anthology titled "Holy Bible" and were tossed into the Apocrypha, which is discarded by many protestant religions today.

If you take into account all the stuff in the old testament and the apocrypha, spread it out on a timeline, and start looking at it as a historical account of what happened to the people of Israel, it would make sense that if the events really did happen, then there would be similar corroborating stories from other literary works of the same era that should describe similar events. And it turns out, there are.

Many old religions have a Global Flood event. All of them have a creation myth. Nearly all of them talk about their creators coming from and returning to the sky/heavens/stars. Many of them have instances where various key people are visited (or people who would become key people after the visit) by people from the sky/heavens/stars.

These stories line up and bring validity to the Bible and the Old Testament as a generally (on the large scale of "these events happened, some scenes have been dramatized") valid historical document.

BUT, if the other texts make the Bible valid, then in turn, the Bible makes the other texts valid as well. If that's the case, what's to be said for the other texts...especially texts from the other side of the world?...or texts that are the basis of other religions? What makes the Bible any more "right" than the other corroborating texts?

It was this question that I posed to my mother, to which she responded along the lines of "the Bible says Jesus is the one-true way to heaven." Well, of course it does, and he is...it's his story, and his heaven. But the other books say the same thing about their key protagonist in varying degrees of similarity.

At this point, she started to shut down, unable to defend the things she taught me to believe because she was never allowed, or never chose to, question why she was being told to believe something. It was either decided for her, or she decided herself to remain in the dark about competing religions.

And once more, for various reasons I can't even recall, after various guilt trips, insults and comments, I was told "well, you can write to me again once you are no longer like your father" essentially kicking me out of her life once more - and to me, it was for the final time.

It helped push a personal quest I had already begun, which was to figure out for myself who or what God actually was/is.

There are dozens or hundreds of creation stories on the planet, throughout hundreds of thousands of years of history and prehistory...Yet many people are raised to believe that all of them were conjured out of thin air, with only 1 being accurate to a T?

After 5 years of studying and learning and researching, I've reached two possible solutions that, to me, are far more plausible than an invisible man in the sky:

Either 1.) This human civilization has thrived and destroyed itself at least once before, in the distant past, to the point where all we have left are stone carvings and monuments built from lost technology that cause us to ask today "how did they even conceive of doing this" (i.e. the great pyramids, Stonehenge, Mayan temples, Nazca lines, etc.). And if that's the case, two things come to mind: a.) we'll never know where we came from because that information is lost...and b.) why did the past civilization, who managed to destroy itself, choose to build things out of stone, instead of the materials we have chosen today like steel and other metals?

Or the explanation that fits more logically with all the existing evidence 2.) The creation myths and stories of a person or persons coming from the sky/heavens/stars are actually true, but contain descriptions of misunderstood technology using their best-available descriptions, and we were created in their image, through genetic alterations of existing primate species on this planet. This exact scenario is described in the ancient Sumerian cuneiform tablets, which detail a creation story nearly identical to that written in the bible and other middle-eastern cultures, but takes place about 100,000 years before the bible's dates and has information describing the time before Genesis 1:26. And if this explanation is not true, why do several of the existing stone monuments mirror the Pleiades constellation, and Orion's Belt? What's so special about them, and how did all the civilizations of the world identify those particular constellations as ones of importance? Why and How could our ancestors have had the mathematical capabilities to build such precise observatories to monitor and watch the movements of the stars and planets? Why would they care? How could they care, as cavemen and low-tech cultures? And if you don't believe that a religion can arise out of a misunderstanding of technology, just look to the South Pacific's Cargo Cults: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

I still don't know who the "God" character really is, but what I do know is that religion is not for me. Religion is taking something at someone else's word without questioning the source - in other words, faith. It's not that I require proof, but rather that I cannot attribute something that has an explanation to something that doesn't.

Defending one religion, whose book is the only authority on itself, telling people what is right and wrong without any supporting materials, and with the explicit instruction to not add to or remove from its contents? Such a religion is no longer for me. And no longer can I, in good conscience, tell someone else that what they are doing will send them to a place that is only described by the same book that says what they are doing is wrong. However, by the same token, I also will not try to convince someone else to abandon their religion and take my suggestions instead.

Religion is either accepted or rejected by the individual when the individual reaches a point in their life where the results they are seeing are attributed to an identifiable cause...whether the cause is an logical explanation or a supernatural force. I have chosen logical explanations.